MATH 230 Probability: Exercise 3

S. Bashir
FALL, 2020

Some instructions below.

• State the appropriate law of probability where applicable.

• Sketch a correctly labelled venn/tree diagram in the problems where

applicable.

Problem 1
A potential investor examined the relationship between the performance of mutual
funds and the school the fund manager earned his/her MBA. The following table
describes the joint probabilities.
Mutual fund outperform Mutual fund outperform
MBA Program the market= Yes the market= No
Top 20 0.11 0.29
Not in Top 20 0.06 0.54

a. Find the conditional probability that a randomly selected fund is managed by a

’Top 20 MBA Program graduate’, given that it did not outperform the market

b. What is the probability of a randomly selected graduate is from the top 20 MBA
Program?

c. What percentage of mutual funds outperform the market?

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Solution:
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Problem 2
A company has three factories (1, 2 and 3) that produce the same chip, each producing
15%, 35% and 50% of the total production. The probability of a defective chip at
1, 2, 3 is 0.01, 0.05, 0.02, respectively. Suppose someone shows us a defective chip.
What is the probability that this chip comes from factory 1?

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Solution:

Problem 3
A survey of consumers in a particular community showed that 10% were dissatisfied
with plumbing jobs done in their homes. Half the complaints dealt with plumber A,
who does 40% of the plumbing jobs in the town. Find the probability that a consumer
will obtain
a. an unsatisfactory plumbing job, given that the plumber was A.

b. a satisfactory plumbing job, given that the plumber was A.

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Solution:

Problem 4
Gregor Mendel in 1865, suggested a theory of inheritance based on the science of
genetics. He identified heterozygous individuals for flower color that had two alleles
(one r = recessive white color allele and one R = dominant red color allele). When
these individuals were mated, 3/4 of the offspring were observed to have red flowers,
and 1/4 had white flowers. The following table summarizes this mating; each parent
gives one of its alleles to form the gene of the offspring.

Parent 2
Parent 1 r R
r rr rR
R Rr RR

MATH 230 Probability Exercise 3

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Assume that each parent is equally likely to give either of the two alleles and that, if
either one or two of the alleles in a pair is dominant (R), the offspring will have red
flowers. What is the probability that an offspring has

a. at least one dominant allele?

b. at least one recessive allele?

c. one recessive allele, given that the offspring has red flowers?

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Solution:

Problem 5
In a population of 100,000 females, 89.84% can expect to live to age 60, while 57.06%
can expect to live to age 80. Given that a woman is 60, what is the probability that
she lives to age 80?

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Solution:

Problem 6
Consider a noisy binary communication channel, where 0 or 1 is sent and 0 or 1 is
received. Assume that 0 is sent with probability 0.2 (and 1 is sent with probability
0.8) The channel is noisy. If a 0 is sent, a 0 is received with probability 0.9, and if a
1 is sent, a 1 is received with probability 0.975. If 0 is received, find the probability
that 0 was sent

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MATH 230 Probability Exercise 3

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Solution:

Problem 7
A satellite can fail for many possible reasons, two of which are computer failure and
engine failure. For a given mission, it is known that: The probability of engine failure
is 0.008. The probability of computer failure is 0.001. The probability of satellite
failure due to engine failure is 0.98. The probability of satellite failure if computer
fails is 0.45. Given any other component failure, the probability of satellite failure is
zero.

• Determine the probability that a satellite fails.

• Determine the probability that a satellite fails and is due to engine failure.

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Solution:

Problem 8
Articles coming through an inspection line are visually inspected by two successive
inspectors. When a defective article comes through the inspection line, the probability
that it gets by the first inspector is .1. The second inspector will ’miss’ five out of
ten of the defective items that get past the first inspector. What is the probability
that a defective item gets by both inspectors?

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Solution:

MATH 230 Probability Exercise 3

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Problem 9
An airline has a regular flight with six seats. It always sells seven tickets. Passengers
turn up for the flight with probability p, and do so independent of other passengers.
What is the probability that the flight is overbooked?

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Solution:

Problem 10
In early 2001 the European Commission introduced massive testing of cattle to deter-
mine infection with the transmissible form of ’mad cow disease.’ As no test is 100%
accurate, most tests have the problem of false positives and false negatives. A false
positive means that according to the test the cow is infected, but in actuality it is
not. A false negative means an infected cow is not detected by the test. An infected
cow has a 70% chance of testing positive, and a healthy cow just 10% chance of false
positive. The mad cow disease risk for 2001 was estimated to be 0.000013. If the test
for a cow came out positive, what is the risk that it was false positive finding?

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Solution:

MATH 230 Probability Exercise 3